I founded the Carnival of MS Bloggers in 2007 to connect the growing MS Blogging Community. My vision was to become the central hub where bloggers could find each other and to feature a collection of independent patient voices.

As larger MS organizations have also begun to feature patient voices on their own websites in recent years, the Carnival of MS Bloggers is no longer the single driving force in serving this wonderful community. For that we should all be grateful.

Thank you for continuing to support me in this one-person labor of love over the years. As of now, I will be taking a break from hosting the Carnival of MS Bloggers.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Carnival Delay

Hi folks,

Did you notice? The Carnival didn't go up yesterday. Tuesday was extra busy. Wednesday was normally day. On Thursday after going and going and going non-stop from 10 am to past 7 pm, I gave myself an extra day to collect the posts. Thought that I would take time today during an infusion of Rituxan to take care of getting the Carnival posted.

Today has not been a boring day, that's for sure. And not really in a good way. But things are going more smoothly now. After having trouble getting an IV started this morning, me bending my elbow too far and causing the delicate IV we did get started to infiltrate, thus getting a dose of steroids and saline in my arm (not the vein), I was tired. Silly arm of mine didn't let me know that there was a problem with the IV until I already had a HUGE bulge on my forearm (which was BELOW the IV insertion point). I think I do know when the tube must have broken through the vein wall as I did feel a 'pinch' at one brief moment while I was adjusting myself in the chair and typing on the computer.

Then a different was brought in to check for veins with a doppler scan (and proceeding to miss three sticks herself, I think), I fainted. My blood pressure seriously was measuring a systolic (the bigger number) pressure of 40 (I was told much later in the day). I'm also told that I stayed lucid enough to talk a bit. I just remember trying to continue to reach through the fog to stay connected with the kind nurses at this new-to-me infusion center.

Then there was talk of admitting me to the hospital so that another team could put an IV in my upper arm (which this outpatient department doesn't do). But eventually pediatric nurses were called to help get another IV started. (Yes, I did finally make this suggestion after the nudge of finding someone who might work with small and difficult veins didn't result in a successful IV.)

I honestly lost track of how many attempts to start an IV were as a number of them happened while I was almost blacked-out. I'm sure that it was at least eight. However, my experience here is still better than the previous infusion location I must say. The attitude and atmosphere made a huge differnce. And Yes, the peds nurses (it took two of them working together) got a good IV going. We were finally back in business.

But since the pre-treatment steroids didn't make it into my veins, I had the same infusion reaction at about one hour into the drip (and we were already going at a planned slow pace with the infusion rate). We had hoped that my body was still processing the steroids which ended up sub-Q. More IV benadryl and steroids were given, the drip stopped, and after 30 minutes we were ready to begin the infusion again.

That was several hours ago. Since we are staying at a slow infusion rate, I still have a couple of hours to go. But at least the medicine is flowing into my body now without difficulty.

As a result of all this drama, I haven't felt like writing, collecting, or creating any posts or articles (including the Carnival) today. My apologies....but now you know what's been going on with me today (and this week, see P.S. below). Thinking of most of the days this week, I've been on the go-go-go much more than usual and I'm exhausted.

Hope things are good with you. Don't fret, the Carnival will indeed come (sometime).

P.S. I was able to spend a large chunk of time catching up with an old friend who was in town this past Sunday. I taught as usual on Monday. Tuesday evening I attended a concert and went out to eat after wards with a small group. Wednesday was normal busy. Thursday was gong to be somewhat busy, but became a hugely long 8 hour day away from home. Today, I arrived at the hospital before 7am; I will probably finish close to 5pm. Long days indeed.